The Avenged Sevenfold show last night in Baltimore was quite an experience. When we arrived at 7:30 pm, the doors had already been open for almost 2 hours. We waited til about 8:45pm for the 2nd opener, Shift, to get on stage. Burn Halo showed up for their very first concert as a new band at around 10pm.

All in all, Burn Halo did a great job for their first concert together. Their best songs from their set by far, were their singles “Dirty Little Girl”, and their finale song, “Save Me”. But I am confident that once they tour some more, and get more comfortable with their stage presence, they will gain even more fans. Look for these guys.

When Burn Halo finished their set, there was a surprise appearance by non other than Synaster Gates, lead guitarist of A7X. The crowd erupted when he showed up on stage, however, the news he was there to deliver was not welcomed. Syn explained to the now drunk, impatient fans that, yes, they would be playing tonight, but that Matt was at Walter Reed Hospital from a situation that happened earlier in the day, and that they would be back on stage to perform at 11:30pm.

At that point, most of the audience had been there for nearly 5 hours, and you could tell the pit was getting restless. There seemed to be a lot of agitation in the air, but everyone was still sticking around to see their band.

The time finally arrived, and A7X opened with Critical Acclaim. Shadows gave us all an explanation of what exactly happened. It turned out that when Johnny C and Shadows were at Walter Reed Hospital to visit injured troops, Shadow’s face got temporarily paralyzed. Check out the clip below:

The set list seemed pretty standard to previous shows we’ve been to in the past year. Overall, they performed well, I was happy with the show, but sometime was amiss. I give the show a 4 out of 5 stars… not the band’s best. I will say though, that the lighting and light panels on stage were a great effect. And musically, they were spot on. If we hadn’t waited for 5 hours to see them after the show was postponed from September, if there weren’t so many preppy kids with no pit etiquette (stay tuned for a blog entry on pit etiquette), and if the band had put a little more variety into their set list (what happened to all the songs from Waking the Fallen?? – I’ve seen them play Second Heartbeat and Remenissions…) then I would have given them a solid 5.

I love these guys, so it’s really hard for me to be a critic, but I guess I was just expecting more out of them.

*photos courtesy of Courtney and JNoyes

Check out more really great pics from the show taken by Courtney here and JNoyes here

And here is one more clip from the 2nd show at Ram’s Head Live from December 10th – singing Happy Birthday to Zacky V who turned 27!